Critical care nurses' knowledge of pressure ulcer prevention, staging and description.

The purpose of this study was to ascertain critical care nurses' knowledge of pressure ulcer prevention, staging, and description in reference to the AHCPR guideline on pressure ulcer prediction and prevention. A cross-sectional survey design was used to collect data from 75 critical care nurses. The Pressure Ulcer Knowledge Test, used to assess nurses' knowledge, consisted of 47 true/false items and had a total alpha reliability of.91. Items were sorted into subscores of Prevention (33 items), Staging (7 items), and Wound (7 items). The percentage of items answered correctly on the test by critical care nurses ranged from 15 percent to 83 percent. Test scores were not affected by years of nursing experience, type of nursing education, or when the nurses had last read an article about pressure ulcers. Only the Wound subscore was significantly affected by the time since listening to a pressure ulcer lecture. Few critical care nurses had read the AHCPR guideline on pressure ulcer prevention. This study revealed a knowledge deficit about pressure ulcer prevention among critical care nurses. Since pressure ulcers have been identified as a national health concern, information about their prevention must be shared and implemented in patient care.